I was very pleased to see a friendly cardiologist in the theatre staff room at lunchtime today, especially as I was having a heart attack at the time. I was in the middle of eating when suddenly I got this terrible crushing central chest pain. However, before I could get up and totter across the room to collapse at his feet, I took a drink of my orange juice and the pain started to fade away.
I spoke to him shortly afterwards about my nasty turn, and he said he had exactly the same experience with eating the fish dish, which was a bit dry. Yes, my agony was due to gutsing down my food too fast.
Most doctors learn how to eat speedily very early on in their career, when you’re working long hours without breaks and you’re advised by everyone to eat, sleep and go to the loo whenever you can because you don’t know when the opportunity will ever come round again. For some strange reason, the skill passed me by, and I’m one of those people who has to chew every mouthful 100 times and is the last one with food on their plate. Seems like I’m lucky I do. I should stick with what works.